by Brian Lumley
And that was the biggest distraction of all: the fact that while the numbers were all there, just waiting to be activated, he still didn’t know how to do it; he couldn’t as yet send them scrolling down the screen of his mind to the point of numerical “critical mass,” where they would form a Möbius door.
In this world only Korath could do that, and the dead vampire was something Jake could well do without … couldn’t he?
Half a dozen times and more he reached over to his bedside table, picked up one of Trask’s files, then sat propped against his heaped pillows, with the file unopened, trying to bring his turbulent thoughts to order. But no, he was too worn down, too weary—made weary by the constant fear of Korath’s unwarranted and unwanted presence, and when he was present, by the vampire’s interminable nagging—to be able to single out and concentrate on any one facet of his predicament.
So that by the time the files on his bed formed an untidy patchwork quilt, the twisted, twirling loop of images in Jake’s mind had become as repetitive, as monotonously hypnotic, as the Möbius strip itself … so much so that as he slipped down into his bed, and into sleep, his shields also went down, collapsing around him into so much mental confetti.
By then, too, in the once-annex at the rear of Jake’s room, Liz Merrick—herself physically and emotionally depleted—was already asleep and telepathically remote from him. And this was just as well, for she was about to miss another of Jake’s nightmares; one taken from life this time, crystal clear in his perceptions and scarcely designed to endear him to her.
The source of this one, however, wouldn’t be nearly so difficult to trace. For in it, Jake was simply reviewing in detail an episode of his own recent past. And of course the source was his memory.
And possibly his conscience, too …
Jake was back in that room again, that torture chamber of muted lighting, heavy drapes, and an atmosphere that reeked of terror. The scene of a multiple violation of a by-no-means innocent but nonetheless helpless girl, the Russian mob’s drugs courier, Natasha Slepak. The woman he’d thought he was in love with. And of course, in his dream, he still was in love with her.
Seven people in that room. Jake was one, tied to a chair so positioned that he was obliged to watch—indeed determined to watch, so that he wouldn’t forget, and when his time came would know how to deal with his tormentors; an eye for an eye, and all that—and Natasha, not bound but completely naked, and in any case helpless, barely conscious under the influence of whatever drugs they’d given her. Drugs that made her compliant while yet keeping her aware, knowing what was happening to her but incapable of resistance. Which might be just as well, for these people (“people”: a dubious description, that) would probably relish a measure of resistance, and they would definitely know how to deal with it. But no, they hadn’t wanted to do any real physical harm—not at this point, and not in this room—because that was to come later. The ultimate harm, yes, to Jake and Natasha both.
Jake and Natasha, and five others in that room: the bastard who had orchestrated this thing, Luigi Castellano, and the four who played it out for him while he sat there in the shadows and watched. No, he didn’t … partake. But is the man who orders an execution any less responsible than the one who fastens the wrist- and ankle-straps, or the one who fits the metallic dome to the shaven head, or the one who throws the switch?
Castellano had ordered this, and perhaps because he didn’t take part in it—perhaps because he sat there, a hunched blot of a figure whose laughter was pitiless, watching from behind a cone of white light that fell upon Natasha’s nakedness, witnessing what he had started and only he could stop, but wouldn’t—Jake hated him all the more for it. Others did this man’s dirty work, and this was among his dirtiest.
But while Castellano himself kept out of sight, the others were far less retiring. One after another they went at Natasha, while Jake—barely conscious that he did it, awash with shame, disgust, and horror—studied each man in his turn, memorizing and measuring him and his … his preferences, against a future reckoning. Oh, there was little enough hope of any such future, but given only half a chance …
… The threat froze in Jake’s mind as something new began to shape. There was one among the four who simply couldn’t wait his turn but shuffled forward, panting like a dog, to where Natasha was being moved around like a human doll by another of her assailants, a man who stood by the edge of the bed, hugging her thighs, grunting as he thrust himself into her with deliberate, measured strokes.
And having seen this before, knowing what was coming, Jake strained more yet, uselessly at the thin nylon cords that bound him as firmly to his chair as his memory bound him to his nightmare. For the impatient one was a beast, a veritable torpedo of a man, whose preference was to defile his victims—totally.
Squat, ugly, and filmed with the sweat of eager anticipation, his shoulders were broad, his hands huge and heavy at the end of apish arms, and his eyes small and piglike in a moonish face that was filled with unnatural lust. Yet for all his brutish appearance, he affected the trappings of sophistication, of civilization however coloured by his gangland background.
He wore patent-leather shoes; a silk or possibly sharkskin suit, and (since he scarcely seemed to have any neck at all) an open-necked silken shirt. And in a hand like a hammer, a cigarette-holder and cigarette, with smoke curling from its hot tip. Approaching Natasha, whose body continued to jerk and flop from the thrusting of the one who grunted, the apish man reached out his cigarette towards her face—
At which the dark shadow that was Castellano straightened up a little in its chair behind the lamp, and said: “Francesco, no! I can’t let you mark her.” (The rumbling power of Castellano’s voice, like the purring of a big jungle cat … but ready in a moment to turn into a warning growl, a menacing snarl.)
And Francesco at once withdrew his hand, half-turned his bullet head, and said: “Mark her, Luigi? Me? No way!” Then he looked Jake straight in the eyes, and smiled like a shark. “I was only offering the little lady a smoke, that’s all. A cool, sweet drag to ease that burning throat. Can’t you see how she gulps and gasps?” And now he reversed the cigarette holder to place its tip between Natasha’s loose lips. “Isn’t that right, little lady? Isn’t that exactly what you’d like? A sweet drag from Frankie’s cigarette?”
The one between Natasha’s legs was finished. He withdrew, backing out of Jake’s line of sight into the shadows, and Jake heard him zip his fly. Natasha flopped where he’d left her, her legs bent at the knees, dangling over the edge of the bed. What little of spirit or strength she had left, she somehow concentrated now into a fierce jerk of her head, spitting out the cigarette-holder and cigarette to send them twirling from the cone of light into the shadows, with the glowing tip spiralling like a maddened firefly.
And Francesco hoisting her legs onto the bed, drawing her upper body to the edge, and flopping his semitumescent member in her face, saying, “Well, if you won’t smoke that, let’s see how you do with this!”
And Jake watching it all, choking on his rage (and, truth to tell, his fear; for it was quite obvious by now that neither he nor Natasha were going to walk away from this) as the brutal Frankie did his thing.
Even then it wasn’t over, not until he’d finished urinating on her, when Castellano had to remind him: “I think that’s enough, Francesco. And remember, you are the one who will have to clean her up. When they find Natasha, I want her to be full of river water. Not piss, and definitely not shit! Our shit—designer shit, dream crystals—yes, of course. But the human variety, no.”
Then it was over—
—But Jake’s real nightmare was only just beginning: the realization of what his experience that night had done to him, how it had turned him into a killer in his own right …
Payback time, the future he had scarcely dared hope for, which now was here. It was a rainy night in Turin, and Jake had followed his quarry—his third victim-to-be, the torpedo, Francesco Reggio h
imsetf—to a hotel on the Corso Alessandria.
In the interim Jake had changed. Now, as a bearded, limping, “older” man, in a broad-brimmed hat and shabby full-length raincoat, his disguise was immaculate. Only his eyes had stayed the same: cold, deep, and as pitiless as his hatred, which was why he kept them hidden under the drooping brim of his hat, behind the tinted lenses of an invalid’s glasses.
Even if Francesco “Frankie” Reggio had noticed him (which he probably had, since on several occasions Jake had found himself irresistibly, murderously drawn to him during the tortuous train journey along the Mediterranean coast route from Marseilles to Savona, then inland to Turin), still he would never have recognized him as the man he and Castellano’s other thug confidants had drugged and dumped in a swollen river under the Alps in Provence.
But conversely, Jake didn’t ever intend to forget Frankie. Not until there was nothing left of him to forget, anyway …
Four hours earlier, Frankie Reggio had taken a taxi from Turin’s main rail station and booked into his hotel. The Hotel Novara was an old but decent three-star place, a leap up-market from the no-star flophouse which Jake had booked into because it stood directly opposite the Novara across a busy road about half a mile from the city centre. The dilapidated looks of the flop hadn’t much bothered him, however; close proximity to the target was of far greater concern than a couple of cockroaches in the cupboards. And in any case, he hadn’t intended to spend too much time there.
Jake had been in a hurry. Wanting to get settled into his room before Frankie reached his, he had taken the first room he was shown on the second floor, and as soon as he was alone he’d opened his suitcase and taken out the briefcase that housed the components of his long-barrelled 7.62 sniper’s rifle. Assembly could wait; he had only been interested in the telescope.
And he had been lucky—but it wasn’t all luck. For Jake had tailed Frankie several times before when the sadistic torpedo was running errands for Castellano. On those occasions he’d kept his distance while watching and learning, and he knew that Frankie usually took rooms in front and two floors up. Likewise tonight. On the other side of the road when the lights had come on in a second-floor room, sure enough it had been Frankie Reggio.
Then Jake had put his own lights out to sit in the dark, watching the thug through a chink in his room’s drab curtains. But while his eyes—and his hatred—were drawn constantly to Frankie, still Jake hadn’t forgotten his purpose here. Undying hatred had brought him here, yes, but revenge was his business, and attention to detail was all-important.
An eye for an eye.
Natasha’s eyes had been put out forever—not literally, no, but the light in them, certainly. And the life behind them had been extinguished entirely …
The Novara’s road-facing rooms had railed balconies, accessible via large walk-through patio-styled windows. The distance between balconies was some four feet, which was important to the plan that had been hatching in Jake’s mind. He’d always known what he wanted to do, but the how of it had been a problem. Now the how was working itself out, too.
As for the Novara’s rooms:
Sweeping Frankie’s room with his crosshaired telescope, Jake had seen all he needed to see before the thug looked out for a moment or two on the street, then closed his curtains to shut both the night and Jake out. That was okay; Jake had seen enough and liked what he’d seen; it suited his purpose to perfection.
Even better, he could still see the spot where the room’s main lighting effect—a pair of typically Italian, latter day art nouveau globes, in the shape of huge lotus buds sprouting from a cluster of gold metal leaves—continued to glow through the curtains from its location on the wall opposite the large bed, directly over a small desk and telephone.
And as Frankie’s shadow had moved around behind his drawn curtains, Jake had quickly assembled his rifle and attached the sniperscope … then waited. And after a few minutes the lights in the room opposite had gone out.
Jake could have shot Frankie dead in his room, of course, or he could have put a bullet through his heart as he came out of the hotel. It would have been so easy to line him up in his sights and squeeze the trigger … much too easy. For that way the torpedo wouldn’t have felt it, or only for a split second. And he definitely wouldn’t have known or cared who had done it to him, or why. But as with those other two bastards who Jake had taken out, so with Frankie: Jake wanted him to know! Wherefore it would have to be done the hard way.
Jake had watched his target leave the hotel and get into a taxi; and as the car had headed downtown on the noisy, near-gridlocked night road, he’d picked up his telephone and called the Novara. His Italian wasn’t good by any means, but at least he could make himself understood.
“Can I speak to Mr. Reggio?” he said. “He called me just a few minutes ago from room, er—I think it’s room, two, one—er—?” While it was a decentlooking place, the Novara wasn’t large as hotels go; there couldn’t be more than two dozen rooms to each floor.
“Room two-one-seven, sir, yes.” (The switchboard operator had fallen for it.) “Just a moment, sir, and I’ll connect you.”
But of course Mr. Reggio hadn’t been available … so would Jake care to leave a recorded message?
No, he wouldn’t. (Yes he would. He’d be leaving a message, certainly, but not on any answering machine.)
Fifteen minutes later, after Jake had packed his briefcase with items from his suitcase—a pair of heavy, two-litre glass carboys, which he had wrapped carefully in hotel towels—and after he’d changed into a dark business suit, brushed his hair, and dispensed with his limp, he’d attracted little or no attention as he crossed the Novara’s lobby to the desk. And glancing at the hotel’s layout plan, it had taken him just a few nervous minutes to register.
He’d required a room on the second floor. Two-one-five, if it was vacant? It was a room that overlooked the road, correct? Yes, he had stayed here before some years ago; he’d enjoyed his stay and liked the room very much—thanks.
Jake had been relying on his luck, but it was holding. The desk clerk hadn’t been doubling on switchboard duties; he wasn’t the person Jake had spoken to on the telephone and so didn’t recognize his voice. And yes, two-one-five was vacant.
Ten minutes later Jake had been inside his room, following which everything else fell easily into place.
Putting out the lights in two-one-five, Jake had gone out onto the balcony, climbed over the rail, and crossed to Frankie Reggio’s side. His glass-cutter hadn’t been required; the glass door slid open almost at a touch. Frankie didn’t bother himself too much with security; no one in his right mind would dream of crossing him, and anyway he’d left nothing in the room that was worth the trouble.
He hadn’t, of course, reckoned with Jake Cutter—or with revenge—or even with the devious mind of his own boss, Luigi Castellano. For of course neither Frankie nor Jake had known at the time that the torpedo was simply bait, the lure in the trap that Castellano had set for Jake.
Anyway, it was very possible that Jake wasn’t in his right mind that night, and that even if he had known it wouldn’t have deterred him. And to Jake’s way of thinking what he had left in room two-one-seven just across the road—the surprise package he had left for Frankie, and the grim message it would serve to convey to his boss—well, that had been worth all the trouble in the world …
All of which had been some three hours ago. Since when Jake had sat at his window in the flop, patiently waiting for Frankie to return—but not for much longer. For Jake’s nightmare was rapidly gaining pace now, its mainly monochrome scenes shifting on the screen of his mind just as fast as he could follow them.
The traffic on the road outside was down to a trickle. Not surprising since it was 1:30 A.M. But the horns were blaring as loudly as ever. For Italian drivers there was only ever one way to drive …
A taxi came up the rain-slick road. Pulling into the kerb, it stopped outside the Novara, and the wedge-shaped
Frankie got out. Turning up his collar against the drizzle and putting his hands over his head, he made for the dry area under the hotel’s entrance canopy, paused a moment to adjust his collar, vanished within …
Cold now, but burning inside, Jake lightly oiled, cleaned, and fed two oddly dissimilar bullets into his weapon’s magazine. And easing the magazine into the rifle’s housing, he placed the completed assembly on a table where its long barrel pointed out of the open window and across the road …
Frankie Reggio’s lights came on in his room in the Novara. Or rather, one of the large lotus buds lit up, its glow clearly discernible even through the drawn curtains. An unmissable target …
Jake had already set up his telephone to call the Novara’s switchboard; now he hit the instant redial and got the exchange. “Room two-one-seven,” he told the operator. And as Frankie Reggio shrugged out of his coat, his telephone began to buzz …
Jake could picture Frankie grumbling about defective lightbulbs as he crossed the room to the phone … then ignored the phone, went to the windows and opened the curtains. Now he was in full view. And now he went back for the phone …
“Si?” (Like the grunt of a pig.)
“Speak English, Frankie,” said Jake.
“Eh? English?”
“I know you can do it because I’ve heard you once before,” Jake told him. “Don’t you remember? That night at Luigi’s place in Marseilles? Me tied to that chair? And the girl, Natasha? And you and your fucking thug pals doing … doing what you did?”
“You!” said Frankie, and Jake saw him give a sudden start, straighten up and glance nervously, jerkily all about his room, looking everywhere except up.
“Me, right,” said Jake. “You remember my name?”
“Jake Cutter, sure,” said Frankie, a little easier. “Luigi said it might be you who took out the others.” He reached under his arm, took an ugly little gun from its holster there.
